


Were Stars to Burn

by RoseCathy



Category: Blue Castle - L. M. Montgomery, Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Marriage of Convenience, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-27
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-17 10:38:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4663509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseCathy/pseuds/RoseCathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. Arnold Rimmer is fed up with his life. When he learns that it will be cut short, he decides to take a drastic step towards happiness.<br/>Premise <b>very</b> loosely based on <i>The Blue Castle</i> by L.M. Montgomery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from W. H. Auden’s poem “The More Loving One”.  
> Thanks to [notalwaysweak](http://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak) for her help on smoking. :)

In the mid-22nd century, a group of American settlers had arrived on Mimas determined to create a second Las Vegas. Although the results left something to be desired (lashings of seediness, not enough opulence), the venture was counted as a success by most.

Arnold Rimmer silently and fervently thanked those intrepid settlers for the legalisation of “quickie” marriages on all the moons, including Io. A little too fervently, perhaps — some force of emotion was certainly making him scribble instead of forming his usual clean letters.

“You in a hurry, mate? Don’t worry, I’ll grab him if he tries to make a run for it.”

He assured himself that he would have silenced the guffawing clerk with a glare had the latter not been burly and tattooed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Lister — _Dave_ — rejoined mildly from near his non-writing arm. “Smegging hell, man, even I can’t read any of that. Slow down.”

Rimmer tried to slow down. _Controlled breathing. In: One, two, three, four. Out: One, two, three. In: One, three, four. Two, four? Oh, smeg._ “Let’s just get it over with,” he muttered, hastily signing his name at the bottom and shoving the form across the counter.

The clerk sucked in a quick breath through his teeth; he looked scandalised. “Listen, mate, I was only kidding earlier. I am required by law to verify that you are of sound mind - ”

“I know.”

“ - and that you are entering into this union of nothing less than your full free will.”

“I’m perfectly aware of the requirements!”

“Give us a minute, yeah?” Lister had already done this once today — carefully taken Rimmer’s hand and steered them towards greater privacy. This time, they ducked behind a stone pillar. “Arn. Look at me.”

_Controlled. Breathing._

“Are you sure about this?”

Rimmer cursed his facial muscles for their inability to form reassuring smiles. “It was my idea.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Just.” He still couldn’t stop glancing between Lister and the door, as if - if - “Look, could we just get on with it? I don’t want to go off schedule.” _Because it’s not me the clerk should be worried about._

Lister appeared to consider this for a moment. “All righty, then.” The heat of their lips together was almost enough to let Rimmer pretend that no pity or sacrifice was involved in what they were about to do. For the moment, they could be an ordinary young couple who’d known each other longer than a fortnight. They could be in love.

-

_What a totally absurd vehicle._

The thing was painted bright green and shaped like a bulbous mutant ant, only with four spindly-looking legs instead of six straddling the path worn into the hill by decades of foot traffic. Probably a decommissioned JMC vessel, but Rimmer was not as adept at identifying ships as he should have been, and he’d never seen one of these in person. _Disgraceful,_ sneered a voice (His father’s? Frank’s?) in his head.

Before the voice could go on more, a man disembarked and got within handshake range. “Dave Lister,” he said confidently, flipping three long dreadlocks over his shoulder. “I’m here to work on the greenhouse.”

As he grasped Lister’s hand, Rimmer had a vision of the greenhouse rebuilt into something like the malformed green insect ship. Daffodils sticking out of random portholes, hydrangea bushes growing in grotesque shapes — well, it would have made an interesting change, anyhow. “Arnold Rimmer. I’m the, er, gardener.”

He was sure Lister had noticed the little wince he always did with that introduction. Those wide brown eyes had already taken in a great deal about their surroundings and about him, he could tell. “Well, Arnold.” He winced again, and Lister noticed again. “Can I call you Arn?”

“Please.”

“Why don’t you show me round the place, Arn?”

Rimmer felt as though they ought to hold hands as they made their way to the greenhouse. It was an idyllic walk — August sunshine tempered by lush green leaves, cobbles under their feet, flowers showing off their fragrance as they got closer as if to tempt them inside. The perfect prelude to a tryst. 

_Tryst?_ What on Io had got into him? He wasn’t so pathetic that he started fantasising about people within thirty seconds of meeting them, even if they were gorgeous. Was he?

Once they were safely concealed by the wisterias, he could dip his head, Lister would rise up on his toes, and their lips would be able to meet. _Unprofessional. Disgustingly unprofessional._ He’d need to ask the doctor about these symptoms as well.

-

Mrs Rimmer’s opinions on “vagabonds” like Dave Lister were thus: They were generally beneath notice, but if they could do a job well, it didn’t hurt to make use of them once in awhile. They would fly or drive in, often for a lower fee than their non-wandering counterparts charged, and otherwise keep to their vehicles. She considered hiring them a kind of charity work.

Her main charity project, however, was her youngest son, who had had the double misfortune to be a failure and to have been sired by their long-deceased former gardener, “Dungo” Dennis (surname unknown). No, a triple misfortune — he’d not been told the truth until after he’d exhausted every attempt to make his supposed father proud of him. By age 30, he was fatherless in more ways than one, had no real career prospects, and didn’t have anywhere to live except back home with his mother.

Arnold tried not to wonder whether her decision to make him gardener was her twisted way of giving him a connection to his real father, whom he’d known and liked in early childhood, or if it was simply her idea of a joke. He liked the work well enough; it got him out of the house for hours, for one thing, and caring for plants was about the only way he had of expressing his artistic talents, which had of course been too inferior to astronavigation and quantum physics to be allowed to flourish. But while he was inside that house of torment, not one meal went by without attention being drawn to some flaw of his. _Weak, wet, slow learner…_ on Sundays his brothers either sniggered or looked on apathetically as their mother criticised his hair, which reverted to its natural messiness after a day in the greenhouse, or dredged up lurid tales of subpar exam results from twenty years past.

To be kept from homelessness by a mother who in all likelihood despised him, and who would still wallop him with broom handles and heavy tomes if only he were the lanky, sickly boy he’d once been, was intolerable. It was small wonder he had attacks of dizziness and heart palpitations; his soul was failing, so why not his body?

-

Rimmer already loved the sight, if not the smell, of Lister smoking.

He started by patting his trouser pockets, apparently as a ritual — he never found cigarettes there, as the day’s supply resided in his hat. Then he pulled a silver lighter from the other side of his hat, shielded the flame with his free hand with as much care as he would a baby bird, and (this was possibly Rimmer’s favourite part) sucked in his cheeks. He was always slow to release that first puff, the better to follow its path out into the world with great concentration.

Rimmer had followed the smoke the first time too. Having found nothing very interesting in it, he now kept his eyes trained on Lister’s face instead.

“Want to try?”

“Wh - of course not!” he exclaimed guiltily.

“How come you always watch me, then?” Lister looked up slyly ( _with bedroom eyes,_ he dared not think), sizing up his mouth as though it were worthy of attention. “I know fascination when I see it, man.”

It wasn’t the cigarette Rimmer was fascinated by, although… _oh, what the smeg._ He gingerly took it from Lister and held it out at arm’s length.

“It won’t bite, you know.”

“I thought it would burn,” he admitted.

“Nah, that’s only if you hold it too close to the end, or if you smoke leftovers like I do sometimes.”

“Leftovers?!”

“Just sometimes.”

The image of Lister sat in a darkened room over a bowl of half-smoked fags was sexier than it had any right to be. Rimmer coughed the treacherous thoughts away and brought his hand up to his lips.

Two seconds later, he was bent double, wishing for a swift death so that he would be delivered from the burning in his nose and throat. “You goit,” he wheezed. “You knew - you knew - that was - ”

Lister quickly plucked the fag from his shaking hand and stamped it out. “I didn’t!” he protested. “I swear I didn’t, I didn’t think - look, I’m really sorry.”

“Sure - you’re sor - ” Sarcasm was difficult to convey, Rimmer found, when your lungs were determined to expel themselves. At least the agony would stop once they’d gone. “Forget - just - forget it.”

Lister, apparently undaunted, clapped a hand on his back once the worst of the coughing had passed — in a bracing, blokey way, obviously. “You going to be all right?”

“Yes, fine,” Rimmer lied. The hand was still on his back. In fact, unless he was mistaken, it was making small soothing movements.

“That’s good.” The tilt of Lister’s head put him in mind of characters in films when they were about to kiss, but what a farcical notion. Or was it? Physically it was well within the realms of possibility, and those eyes, that sweet concerned face…left his vision as Lister hugged him, once again in a bracing, blokey way (he decided over the rush of even more blood to his ears).

“I’ve got to go, man, but I’ll see you tomorrow. I mean, if you still want,” Lister chuckled softly against his cheek.

In the span of a few milliseconds, their faces went from much too close to much too far apart. “Yes,” Rimmer responded automatically through his shivers. “Tomorrow.”

-

In Rimmer’s youth, _Ionian heartworm_ had been bandied about by cruel schoolmates as a bogeyman of sorts. Nausea and nasty swoopy sensations before exams were a sure sign that he had it, and since he was going to die soon anyhow, an extra punch here or a pinch there could hardly matter, could it? Finding out that the disease was rare had been small comfort; it was also a new world disease, one that had emerged only after the complete colonisation of Io, and as such had no known cure or vaccine.

He’d scraped up the last of his courage to sneak off to Dr Tranter, whose practice was a good 15 miles from his house. He couldn’t trust his normal GP, with whom his mother had most likely had an affair at some point, to be discreet about out-of-the-ordinary scans and blood draws. Although he knew very well that she was at a ladies’ luncheon and would come home inebriated, he couldn’t be sure that there was no secret surveillance equipment tracking his every move. She’d always had an uncanny ability to detect wrongdoing on his part, whether it was filling a sketchbook instead of studying or taking learning drugs.

A shrill alarm shattered Rimmer’s reverie. Dr Tranter hastily withdrew the last of the blood vials and sprang up. “Under normal circumstances, I would have you wait here for the results, but - ”

“I understand!” Rimmer shouted over the sirens as they made their way to an emergency exit. “I was going to ask for the results by post, anyhow. For discretion.”

“Not in person? Or over the communicator?”

“No, no. And if you could use an utterly unremarkable-looking envelope, I’d be most grateful!”

Dr Tranter watched, bushy eyebrows drawn up, as the young man walked away as briskly as he could without running.

-

“Are you seeing anyone?”

The pruning shears abruptly clamped shut around a rose. “What do you think?”

Lister laughed softly from atop his ladder. “I don’t know what I think. That’s why I asked. I mean, for all I know, you go out to orgies every night after I’ve left.”

A blush exploded across Rimmer’s face. “I don’t go to…those.”

“Not even once in awhile?”

Rimmer dropped his shears and glared at Lister until he climbed down and gave him a hug. Hugging had become a daily ritual for them since the cigarette disaster, and every time it happened, Rimmer imagined himself whispering _I don’t want you to leave_ into Lister’s ear. Maybe on the fast-approaching final day of Lister’s contract, he’d be desperate enough to actually say it. Maybe. He had his doubts.

-

_Dear Mr Rimer,_

The greeting felt like a personal insult. Misspelling aside, it ought to have had more gravitas in light of what followed: A short statement on his future, which incidentally was also expected to be short.

_In light of certain symptoms…_

_…consistent with Ionian Heartworm…_

_…the results confirm…_

_Once the phase of rapid decline begins, it is imperative that…_

_…discuss your options._

_Options._ That was a laugh. He didn’t have options, only a continuation of his current dreary existence to consider. 

Hours passed before Rimmer realised he’d been lying on his back (in preparation for cadaverhood?), staring unseeingly at the ceiling with his death sentence clutched to his chest. His first thought after returning to a semblance of consciousness was Lister: Lister laughing, eyes flashing, brimming with life. Playfully cuffing Rimmer on the arm. Waxing poetic about the virtues of hot curry. He was probably one of those people who’d live to be a hundred and seventy-one and proclaim that they owed it all to daily smoking. 

It was unbearable. How was it possible to die without having _lived_? Once again Rimmer thought of Lister: zooming around the Solar System in Starbug, unburdened by outside expectations and disappointments. Rimmer had always believed in a settled life with a career, a house, maybe a family if miracles could be arranged, and it occurred to him then that despite never staying in one place for more than a few weeks, Lister was well ahead of him on those points.

  


By the time that afternoon’s cigarette met its fate under Lister’s heel, Rimmer had cycled through half a dozen breathing exercises, each accompanied by a different potential outcome to his plan.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve got something weighing on you.”

“I…” This was not going to go well if Lister could read minds.

“Look, man, if it’s the stuff about your mum and dad and that, I told you it was no big deal. I don’t think any less of you for it. I mean, I’m hardly in a position to.”

Right. It was time. Rimmer squared his shoulders, much as he liked to think he would before a firing squad. “Marry me.”

He wondered if he should have phrased it more eloquently, or perhaps got down on one knee; Lister might not have started laughing if he had. “Really know how to woo a guy, don’t you? Mind you, it _is_ time I thought about settling down. It’s what my gran would’ve wanted.”

“Stop.” The bleakness of the plea made Lister sober up and take notice. He stood silent, lips slightly parted, until Rimmer stuttered out his next sentence. “I’m serious. Will - will you marry me?”

“Why?”

Lister’s incredulity, while perfectly understandable, stung a little bit. “Because - ” Rimmer paused to let the lump in his throat clear. If he wanted to make this work, he had to present his idea rationally, not emotionally; should Lister say no, he’d at least be able to hide how much it hurt. “Because I think I could live with you. Despite your - habits.”

Lister smiled at his poor imitation of smoking.

“Whereas I can’t live with my mother any longer. And…there’s something else.” He fished Dr Tranter’s letter out of his pocket and handed it to Lister; neither his voice nor his brain could be trusted to explain coherently. When he found the courage to look up again, having allowed far more time than necessary, Lister was staring at him, completely still like he’d forgotten how to breathe.

“It’s only,” he finally exhaled and chewed pensively on his lower lip. “I wouldn’t mind, exactly, except - okay, so we’d be eating breakfast or something, right, and I’d look up, or I’d roll over one morning, and you’d be _dead._ It’s a bit much, you know?”

 _That would mean I was happy to the very end_ was what Rimmer wanted to say, but his heart sank along with Lister’s falling face. “They said there would be a period of decline which would make obvious - but look, forget it. Forget I said anything.”

“Oh, eh, I didn’t mean…”

“Just forget it.” He turned away to hide his cheeks, which had begun to burn in shame, and his muscles tensed up in preparation for a swift exit. “I have to go.”

“Wait.”

Nothing but that gentle request could have made him stop and look into Lister’s eyes. They were dark, fearless — hardly a match for his murky, cowardly ones.

“It didn’t say how long you had.” Lister paused and looked at the letter again. “No, it does. Six to eight months?”

“A year if I’m lucky.”

“And in the meantime, you want to be married.”

“Yes.”

Lister raised an eyebrow. “With all that implies?”

 _Yes._ “No, I, that is,” Rimmer stammered, “as much as you’re comfortable with. I’m not asking for - ” _\- for you to be madly in love with me._ “I mean - to whatever extent.”

“Until the time comes.”

“Yes.”

Unbelievably, Lister stepped closer. “That’s what you want, to be married to me?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s get married.”

It was Rimmer’s turn to stare incredulously. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Well, Lister had little to lose. He’d squander one year of his young life at most, and after Rimmer…afterwards, he’d be free to go back to normal. Rimmer wanted to give some reassurances to that effect, as much for himself as for Lister, but he couldn’t think of anything to say aside from “Thank you.”

The unthinkable had happened. No event from this moment until the imminent end of his life would shock him. When Lister leaned in to press a soft kiss to his lips, then another, then took his hands, he wasn’t even surprised.

“I should probably tell you what to expect.”

 _What?_ Rimmer blinked; he’d been waiting, eyes half-closed, for the next kiss. “Yes, yes, I suppose.”

Kiss. “I’m a slob.”

“I never would have guessed.”

“Cheeky.” Kiss. “All I drink is lager and coffee.”

“Oh.”

Kiss. “Erm…I like to smoke in bed.”

“Eurgh.”

“Maybe we can compromise on that.” Kiss. “I have a cat.”

Rimmer drew back. “A cat?”

“Her name’s Frankenstein and she’s two years old. I think she’ll like you.”

“I don’t know anything about cats.”

“Eh, I’m lying. She probably won’t like you.” Kiss.

“Why not?”

“It’s nothing personal.” Kiss. “She’s just not the sociable type. Want to see a picture?”

The snapshot that Lister pulled from his wallet showed a sleek black cat who was none too pleased about being held up to the camera. “It looks as though she’s about to gouge your eyes out.”

Lister shrugged. “She didn’t, though. Isn’t she cute?”

“I suppose,” Rimmer conceded dubiously. His family had had dogs when he was growing up, never cats. Would he get a claw in the face if he tried to pet her? Would she sit and stare at them while they…did things, assuming any _things_ were on the table? The questions were too silly to be spoken aloud.

“Hey.” Unless he was mistaken, there were arms about his waist. “Why don’t you tell me about you?”

Lister’s face was inches from his; the tiniest of movements could lead to another kiss. Rimmer cleared his throat nervously. “I’ve told you all there is to know.” _Except for the small matter of how I feel about you._ “There’s not much.”

The waited-for kiss fluttered against his lips. “What about, like…why the rush to get married? Not that I mind, but you could just, you know.”

“Run away?” Rimmer had considered that. “If we get married, you’ll be my next of kin rather than any of - them.” He gestured vaguely toward the house. “I can’t trust them to follow my instructions, or to make…the end…comfortable for me. I think I can trust you.”

“You can.”

“I wouldn’t be asking you to do this if things weren’t the way they were, but they are, but if you want to back out, it would be…” Rimmer paused. He’d been about to say _it would be fine with me,_ but it wouldn’t, not really.

Lister shook his head. “I won’t. I want to help you, cos I know how smegging miserable you are, living in that house, living with your mum. You know that, yeah?”

Rimmer chewed on his lower lip, trying to arrange his feelings more neatly. His plan had worked — surely he should be happy. The part of him that felt happiness, or at least relief, reasoned that he couldn’t expect Lister to feel more than pity and a degree of attraction towards him. Another, less rational part of him had been hoping for something more, perhaps a confession that Lister was secretly as smitten with him as he was with Lister. That, however, was nonsense, and he knew it. Few people in his life had been genuinely attracted to or kind to him; he was in no position to balk at either.

-

“…I declare you married,” the ancient registrar intoned in her quavery voice. “Congratulations.”

“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Lister whispered as their foreheads touched. 

Rimmer slid his thumb over the smooth band on his ring finger. No, not bad at all. It had been as nice a once-in-a-lifetime experience as any and, Rimmer assumed, a pleasant first go for Lister.

-

“Good afternoon, Mother.”

Mrs Rimmer immediately clocked that something was wrong. Her son had not only sung out his greeting as he strode in, he was smiling — actually grinning, smug as could be.

“Where have you been?” she demanded.

“It’s funny you should ask, Mother,” he chirped, “because I’ve been off doing something important.”

“Is that so?” she sniffed.

“Something monumental. No, no, life-changing. Things will never be _quite_ the same again.”

“Arnold, do stop talking nonsense - ”

“I was getting married.” Still grinning madly, he held up his left hand for her benefit. “Look, I’ve got a ring and everything.”

Oh, this was _good_. Her cheeks went blue, then mauve, then a dark, patchy purple. “Married,” she repeated quietly. “To whom, if I may ask?”

Rimmer suddenly felt a great reluctance to answer her. What did his mother know of shy (on his part, at least) kisses exchanged under the registrar’s placid gaze, or of the daydreams of his new life he held close to his heart lest he upset the balance of their arrangement? He couldn’t bear to think of how ridiculous she would make him feel about all of it. “Does it matter?” he deflected. “It’s not someone you would have chosen for me.”

Mrs Rimmer stared hard into his carefully pleasant face as if she could will it to crack. “You were never a good liar, Arnold, so don’t try. Who is it?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t give two weeks’ notice, but time was of the essence.”

She silently followed him up to his room and watched him gather up the bags he’d packed the night before, then silently followed him down the stairs. “I’ll find out anyway,” she spat as he stepped over the threshold.

“I’m sure you will.” With every step he took, Rimmer’s heart lifted a bit more, and his bags felt feather-light once he realised that his mother wasn’t following him.

-

The door to the main cabin of Starbug creaked open. “Here we are,” Lister announced cheerfully, letting Rimmer enter the living/dining area first. “Hey, Frankie!”

The cat took one look at Rimmer and reared back. Her mouth opened frighteningly wide, displaying an arsenal of very sharp-looking teeth.

“This is Frankenstein,” Lister said unnecessarily. 

Rimmer gulped. He was picturing his arms and legs covered in puncture marks. “I don’t think she approves of me.”

“Well, you’ve got to live together, haven’t you? Come here, Frankie, I want you to meet Arn.”

“No, that really won’t be - ” 

Frankie hissed and dashed off toward the back of the ship, where she melted into the darkness.

“She’ll come round,” Lister said with the same easy optimism he’d shown all day. “Put your bags down, I want to give you a tour.”

“Did you, er, inform Frankie that you were getting married?” Rimmer enquired as they walked arm-in-arm towards the stairs.

“I did, as it happens. Mind you, she did seem smegged off when I told her cats weren’t allowed at the register office…”

-

The sleeping arrangements were also easy, at least to Lister. “You can take the outside,” he said grandly, indicating the doubled bunk. “You need the leg room more.”

“Right.”

“Unless you’d rather have your own bed.”

 _What a preposterous idea._ “No, I…the outside will…no. I mean, yes, I’ll take the outside.”

Being kissed goodnight, however briefly, put a clown-like grin on Rimmer’s face. He was going to sleep not in his tiny bedroom at home (though it wasn’t really home, never really had been), but next to the man he loved, and he hadn’t even set an alarm for the next morning. No more Mother. No more Sunday dinners. No more hiding sketchbooks. It was bliss.

Ten minutes later, he found himself on the other side of the room, his bliss thoroughly disrupted.

  


“Arn?” Lister muttered groggily. “What are you doing?”

Rimmer continued to pace the path he’d been carving for the better part of three hours. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Why?”

“‘Why?’, indeed. You see, I assumed you’d told me everything I needed to know. More than everything. I mean, you even showed me how to adjust each individual chair in the cockpit, which I would have figured out for myself, believe it or not.”

“So?”

“So.” Rimmer sat down rather violently on the bunk and took a deep breath to replenish his outrage tank. “Not once during all your briefings, explanations, and assurances did you see fit to inform me that you snore like an elderly boar who’s had a few too many!”

“Ah. That.”

“Yes, _that._ ”

“What, so you wouldn’t have married me if you’d known?” Lister’s sleepy-eyed grin would have softened anyone’s resolve. Rimmer wasn’t to be blamed for feeling weak in the knees, especially given how much he’d been pacing. “Is that what you’re saying? It’s too late, man.”

“I’m saying that a warning would have been appreciated. Where are you going?”

“I’ve got earplugs somewhere. Yeah, here we go…these should help.”

“I doubt it.”

“All right, I’ll tell you what.” Lister abandoned the earplugs and plonked himself down on Rimmer’s lap. It was so casual, yet so _intimate_ …too intimate? No, they were married, after all, and Lister felt good in his arms. “I give you full permission to wake me up and tell me to stop if it gets too much. Deal?”

Rimmer yawned, nose squashed against Lister’s shoulder. The way his jaw stretched wide open reminded him of Frankenstein, but he was too tired to care about the disturbing comparison. “Deal.”

He napped the morning away, serene in the knowledge that no one would nag him over it.

\- 

It was happening again. While the earplugs blocked out some of the sound, Rimmer was certain that the vibrations were shaking the whole ship and that it couldn’t possibly hold up against such an assault.

At minute five, he gave up hoping and shook Lister by both shoulders. “Dave,” he hissed. “Shh!”

“Shh,” Lister mimicked.

“No, I mean - look, stop snoring.”

“Okay.”

It started again just as Rimmer was about to take the first step into Dreamland. “David,” he groaned, mashing his hands into his face. “Please.”

“Huh?”

“You’ve. Got. To stop. Snoring!”

“Why?” Lister rolled onto his side and threw an arm around Rimmer, who gasped at the closeness and once more at a leg wedging itself between his. _Wonderful._ That is, the intimacy felt wonderful, but he was surely doomed to a night with snores thundering even closer to his ears. He waited, convinced that they would resume at the worst possible juncture. For all that Lister smiled like an angel in his sleep, he probably had a sixth sense for when they’d cause maximum aural and psychological damage.

Rimmer considered the possibility that this whole marriage business had been a mistake after all. It was a shame; he had so looked forward to sharing a bed with someone he could stand, assuming it would be generally lovely and cosy and unlike anything he’d ever - actually, it _was_ lovely feeling Lister’s deep, even exhales skimming across his collarbone.

A spring breeze carried them up into the night sky on a float of fluffy clouds. Rimmer closed his eyes and slowed his breathing to match Lister’s; their safety depended on them being in sync, somehow, and he was curious to see where in the universe they’d end up…

-

One of Rimmer’s favourite things about his new life was that he could sleep when he wanted, within reason. His mother wasn’t there to upbraid him for being lazy when he curled up for a nap after a hard day’s work. To be fair, however, he wasn’t sure that Lister would appreciate him turning in a few minutes early and spreading out starfish-like over the entire bed.

A light swat landed on his calf. “Shift.”

“Absolutely not.”

Lister sighed and began to wrestle his way into bed. “You’re a bloody lazy sod, you know that?” he grumbled, pushing Rimmer’s arms and legs around to make room for himself. “You would have fit right in at art college, even without the art.”

“Mmm.” Rimmer shrugged and re-settled his head on his pillow. He was ready to be lulled to more complete sleep as usual by Lister’s pulse beating near his and fingers lightly stroking his hair.

A few confused minutes passed before he realised that Lister wasn’t so much stroking as pulling at little tufts, patiently teasing the whole mass to unprecedented heights.

“It looks good like this,” Lister explained in response to a questioning frown, as though that should be the last word on the matter.

It occurred to Rimmer then that he’d been quite quick to get used to all this. Lister’s hand was now pushing a stray curl back behind his ear, and the familiarity of that gesture, the soporific warmth of their bodies flush against one another, something more heated spreading over his neck and chest and _oh,_ now he was awake.

He fought down a mad urge to grip Lister by the dreadlocks and kiss him until he was squirming and breathless. He could not, he reminded himself for the umpteenth time, have more than Lister was willing to give. Considering their circumstances, the amount of physical affection he gave and received daily was staggering; Lister was nothing if not tactile. But if only. If only.


	2. Chapter 2

After a month of aggressive stances and baleful looks, Frankenstein seemed to get used to the new arrangement. What she felt for Lister was about one step above tolerance, and her feelings toward Rimmer stabilised at one or two steps below that. On some nights, she deigned to sit between them while they watched vids.

Rimmer settled into the rhythm of life on Starbug more quickly. They went wherever Lister found a job and, depending on the circumstances, Rimmer either helped out or worked on his art. He’d drained his meagre savings before he left Io to buy supplies that would have been too difficult to hide in his bedroom before — an easel, canvas, a complete set of oil paints, and a few odds and ends. Having set up a studio in one of the empty bunkrooms (after giving it a deep cleaning, aided by a sheepish Lister), he’d resolved to spend time in it every day according to a strict timetable.

He would have followed through if not for Lister’s innocent interference. “Fancy going for a walk?” he often proposed in the evenings, or he snuggled up just as Rimmer was about to obey the green rectangle that read “Sketchbook time”. Rimmer didn’t mind. He still had time to himself, and even if Lister’s motive was altruism rather than desire, it was nice to be the centre of attention when they were safe in their little home. 

There were only two bouts of unpleasantness during the first month: a brief one when Lister was trying to explain the finer points of carpentry to him, and another following a nightmare about his father. He woke with a start just as the first light was beginning to filter through the porthole in their room and, momentarily forgetting where he was and why there was someone next to him, kicked Lister in the leg.

“Sorry, sorry.” He jerked away from Lister’s placating hand. “I don’t know, I - I didn’t - ”

“It’s okay.”

“I can’t…”

“Shh.” Lister pulled him close. “Oh, man, your heart’s going like a rabbit’s.”

“Just a dream,” he mumbled.

“Shhh. It’s okay.”

He fell asleep with his ear to Lister’s steadily beating heart. There were no more dreams that night.

-

On 14 October, Rimmer went down to breakfast to find two party hats on the table. Frankie was batting at a third. “What’s all this?”

“It’s my birthday today.”

“Your birthday? You never said.”

“It’s complicated.”

Lister had shared a great deal about his history — being in care, his adoptive parents both dying when he was young, going to live with his gran until she passed away in an accident when he was 13. He’d whispered into the darkness as they lay together about how lonely and wayward he’d been as a young adult, and Rimmer had held his hand, not knowing what to say. His experience had been dissimilar, to say the least; while Lister had wished for a big family, Rimmer had wished that his family would all disappear or that he was secretly adopted.

“Complicated?”

Lister gestured at Rimmer to sit down, then came over to perch in his lap. Rimmer’s right hand automatically went to play with his dreadlocks.

“When I told you I was adopted, I might have forgotten to mention that I was abandoned.”

“Abandoned?” Rimmer felt stupid parroting Lister’s words without contributing anything, but he was once again at a loss for what to say.

“Yeah. I was found in a cardboard box under a pool table in a pub. Six weeks old. They worked out that I must have been born about October 14th, so that was entered as my birthday.” Lister poked Rimmer in the stomach. “I knew you weren’t paying attention at the register office. You were nervous, I know,” he added quickly when he saw Rimmer’s guilty face. “It’s all right really. I don’t like to make a big fuss.”

“What are the hats for, then?”

“Maybe a little fuss.”

The hats were metallic red with a pattern of small white stars and fastened under the chin with equally red ribbons. They stood together awkwardly, each suppressing a smirk at how silly the other looked. “Thanks, man.”

“Yes, well, happy birthday.” 

Rimmer closed his eyes as Lister stepped forward. Instead of the softness he’d come to expect, he received a firestorm of kisses, burning and greedy and deep in his mouth. It was so nearly what he fantasised all the time that his whole world was thrown off-balance; he grabbed clumsily at Lister’s shirt to keep from falling over.

“Happy birthday,” Lister whispered when they broke apart for air.

“It’s - it’s not my birthday,” Rimmer gasped confusedly.

Lister gently backed him up against the wall and resumed kissing him like their lives were at stake.

-

Rimmer had been to Titan once before, on a school trip to the zoo. He had little memory of it aside from the ice cream sandwich that he’d half eaten and half lost down the meerkat enclosure.

Starbug’s freezer did not contain any ice cream sandwiches. Nonetheless, he settled back contentedly in Lister’s faded old deckchair and smiled up at the baobab trees, which were flourishing in defiance of pollution and general human-inflicted damage. He should have been thinking about them — their ability to rise above ugliness, and perhaps the pile of lovely sketches he planned to accumulate by their leaving date — but he was thinking about Lister.

Lister couldn’t stop touching him lately. He must have heard the phrase _can’t keep their hands off each other_ a thousand times and seen the odd physical manifestation of it, yet he wasn’t sure whether it applied to them. They did their share of overheated snogging in dark corners when they could be reasonably sure that Frankenstein wouldn’t interrupt them, but Lister’s hands tracing patterns along the curves of his face, burrowing into his hair, and mapping his chest — it all felt like more than that cliché, and more than he could fathom, when the hands slid higher or lower and some variation of “Do you want…” was whispered into his ear.

_Yes. Yes. Please._

The first time it had happened, he’d noticed the sounds above all because he’d been too embarrassed to raise his eyes. The clink of metal and the whisper of fabric had vied for attention with his own quickening breath as his body was carefully stripped, caressed, and brought to a glow. With Lister pressed fully against him, he’d begun to focus more on sensation. Two hearts beating close together, lips hot on his neck. A strong hand at his back, another travelling up his thigh. The rush of adrenaline when he’d finally met Lister’s eyes and realised they were not only looking at him, but studying his every reaction. 

“Feel good?” Lister had cooed. At that, he’d become utterly, utterly lost - 

Frankie meowed imperiously from behind him.

“Frankenstein, please. I’m trying to concentrate,” he scolded over his shoulder.

She shot him a glare and walked even further away from the ship. Rimmer shrugged and opened his sketchbook. Lister had told him that she liked a bit of adventure, but that she was always sensible enough to stay close and to go back inside for food at regular intervals. 

He whiled away the afternoon drawing and dreaming. When he smelled Lister’s cigarette smoke, he put his things down and bounced up to meet him as he appeared from behind the baobabs.

“Hi.” Lister’s mouth tasted horrible, but for once Rimmer wasn’t much bothered; he’d been absorbed in pleasant thoughts about bedtime. “How was your day?”

“Busy.”

“Yeah? Can I see?” Rimmer handed over the sketchbook and watched Lister’s eyes widening at the last page, which was filled with small, detailed studies of his eyes, lips, and fingers, among other parts. “Well, it’s obvious what’s kept you busy,” he sniggered, smirking and elbowing Rimmer in the ribs. “Pervert.”

“I did draw other things as well, which you skipped over completely,” Rimmer retorted as they walked back to Starbug. “It’s not my fault if you’re a philistine who prefers rude depictions of Wilma Flintstone to my landscapes.”

“Hey, I can properly appreciate a good landscape, I’ll have you know. I learned how at art college. For example, this skilfully shaded outline of, erm…is that a bum?!”

“It’s your chin, you gimboid!”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, man. I think we need a second opinion. Frankie! Frankenstein?”

A piteous mew echoed in the living area. “Frankie?” Lister repeated more softly. “Where are you?”

Another mew led them to the kitchen, where they found Frankenstein lying on the floor with her right hind leg stretched out. Lister immediately knelt down beside her. “Frankie, what’s wrong? Oh, no!”

Rimmer’s pulse sped up alarmingly. The cut on Frankie’s leg didn’t look deep, but for all he knew, it had been caused by something dangerous, and it was all his fault for not paying attention.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. We’ll take her to the vet and she’ll be good as new.”

Rimmer cringed as Lister, whose expression was completely at odds with the optimistic pronouncement, took out a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth without lighting it. “I know I should have watched her more carefully, but I was…” _You were too busy with your “art”_ , a snide voice in his head supplied.

“Look, it’s not your fault,” Lister said without much noticeable conviction. “Can you get the carrier?”

  


After one last vicious puff of his cigarette, Lister sighed deeply and pushed his chair aside.

“Dave?”

“I’m fine. Just going to have a beer.”

Rimmer shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. To the relief of all concerned, there was nothing seriously wrong with Frankenstein; she’d most likely scratched herself on a tree branch, and the laceration wasn’t deep. Though it was natural for Lister to be worried, Rimmer hadn’t expected him to go to pieces, especially with Frankie now sleeping quite happily on her favourite blanket. There was, it seemed, no way for him to offer comfort without drawing attention to the fact that all this was down to his failure to keep an eye out.

He heard the beer land on the table with a _clunk_. The next thing he knew, Lister was wrapped in his arms, face buried in his chest. He instinctively squeezed tighter and as he did so, he felt the tension melting off Lister’s shoulders.

“Frankie’s all I’ve got, you know.”

Rimmer managed to bite back the automatic _What about me?_. Even if he counted, he was hardly going to be around forever.

“Other than you, I mean. And I have got friends and everything, but not like her, not to come home to every day. I mean, she’s only two. If something had happened…”

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault. We just need to be better about keeping her inside, both of us.”

 _You’re lying,_ Rimmer thought, even as they curled up together on the sofa. _But I have to believe you, because I’ll go mad otherwise._

-

Renoir had definitely had some advantages when it came to painting a sleeping cat. His subject must have been more docile than Frankenstein, for one. For another, neither the cat nor he had lived on an oddly shaped spaceship.

The patch of light in which Frankie liked to snooze currently had a strange greenish tint due to the way the Sun’s rays fell on this part of Callisto. Nevertheless, Rimmer persevered. It was Christmas Eve, the last day of work for Lister before their holiday on this moon officially began; the finishing touches had to be put on now so that the painting could be hidden away within the next hour.

The star of the painting sidled up as Rimmer was putting his palette down. He wasn’t entirely satisfied with the result, but it would have to do, and picturing Lister’s reaction was putting a smile on his lips. “What do you think?” he asked hopefully. 

Frankenstein yawned hugely and turned away to clean her face.

Rimmer’s excitement leaked out with his sigh. “There’s no need for that attitude,” he told her crossly. “It reflects on you as a subject as well, you know.” 

He carried the painting back up to his studio and carefully placed it in the closet. When he went back downstairs to collect his things, Lister was perched on the kitchen counter. “Working on your secret project again?” he remarked by way of greeting. “When do I get to see it?”

Rimmer kissed the top of his head. “Very soon.” They’d had a version of this conversation every day for a week.

“‘Very soon’? A-ha! You said just ‘soon’ yesterday, but today it’s ‘ _very_ soon’. So it _is_ a Christmas present.”

“If that’s what you think.”

“Is it for me? For Frankie? What is it? Oh, come on, man, give us a clue,” Lister wheedled between kisses. “Just one tiny little clue?”

“You are such a child sometimes - oof.” Rimmer stumbled backward as Lister pounced on him. “Are we going upstairs?”

“Yeah.” Lister’s face had the dreamy, sleepy smile which Rimmer had come to recognise as a good sign. “What will I get for carrying your easel up?”

“A gold star.”

“Anything else?”

“All in good time, Dave.”

“So who’s it for? It’s for me, isn’t it?”

Lister kept up the questioning all the way to the bedroom. Luckily for Rimmer, there were other matters to occupy his attention once they were inside.  


  


Christmas morning had been a mixed bag in Rimmer’s youth. He’d liked it best when extended family were visiting, since that meant less attention given to his flaws and better presents for the sake of appearances. On the whole, his first and last Christmas with his new family was going far better than any of those past occasions.

He’d stolen out after Lister had fallen asleep to place the painting under the tree. It now sat alongside a small gift-wrapped box bearing his name, but he’d resisted the temptation to look — _all in good time_ , as he’d told Lister. Now they were having breakfast in their dressing gowns while Frankie chased a ball of tinfoil around the room.

Lister’s eyes lit up when Rimmer went over to the tree and came back with the canvas clutched to his chest.

“Merry Christmas,” he murmured, gaze focused on a scuff mark on the floor. He still wasn’t sure if Lister would like the painting; as he handed it over, he suddenly wished he’d just bought a present, like a case of Callisto’s finest lager or something along that line.

A loud sniff made him look up. Before he could gauge the mood, Lister had jumped up to plant a kiss on his face. “Thanks, Arn! Look, Frankie, it’s you! How does it feel being an inspiration to a great artist?”

“Stop.”

“No, it’s really good! I love it. Do you mind if I hang it in the bedroom?”

“No, go ahead.”

"Okay." Lister grinned and kissed him again. “Now open yours.”

The box contained a pair of large-lensed sunglasses — aviators, Rimmer believed they were called. “Are these, er…are they really for me?”

“Well, yeah. Why, are they - you don’t like them?”

“No. I mean, yes.” The glasses looked to him like something out of a cheesy movie. They were the type to sit under the immaculately styled blond fringe of a handsome space hero who regularly flew his sleek jet into war zones to rescue princesses, not on the face of a nobody like Arnold Rimmer. “They’re nice. It’s just, I’m not sure if I could really….”

“Try them on. Come on, come with me.”

Rimmer let Lister put the glasses on him and lead him to a bathroom mirror. He couldn’t help chuckling at what looked back — a weird sort of space hero prototype, sadly lacking the swishy hair, the swagger, and the golden flight suit. “That’s certainly different.”

“I think they look good. I just thought they’d be useful for when you’re outside. Save your eyes for drawing and that, you know,” Lister explained, hugging him from behind.

“I do know,” Rimmer told their reflections; the glasses seemed to imbue his smile with a sparkly action-film quality. “Thank you.”

  


On Boxing Day, they ducked into a cosy, semi-hidden café to get a respite from the crowds. They’d just ordered and found seats when a voice called out, “Arnold? Arnie!”

No. It couldn’t be.

“And this must be David!” Howard boomed as he strode over to their table.

_No. No, no, no!_

“Hi,” Lister answered uncertainly. “And you are…”

“Howard Rimmer, your brother-in-law, at your service. So lovely to meet you at last.”

Rimmer had forgotten that Howard lived on Callisto. Even if he hadn’t, he wouldn’t necessarily have anticipated running into him; it was a fairly large moon. He gripped the edge of the table to calm himself. “Howard,” he said curtly. “So Mother knows everything, I presume.”

Howard laughed in what he undoubtedly considered a good-natured way. “Of course she knows. That woman can get any information she wants, although it has been rather more difficult than usual, what with you wandering all over the Solar System. Now don’t look so worried, dear boy, I won’t tell her about today. You’re still newlyweds, after all — lord knows you deserve some privacy.”

While Rimmer tried to think up ways for him and Lister to leave the Solar System immediately, Lister engaged Howard in small talk. “So, how long have you lived here?” Three agonising minutes passed before the waitress brought their orders over.

“Well, I’d best be getting on,” Howard said airily. “Lots to do. Look me up if you make any return trips here, boys. Happy Christmas.”

“Bit of a condescending git, isn’t he?” Lister murmured.

“Condescending doesn’t begin to cover it.”

“I thought you said he wasn’t as bad as the others, though.”

“Yes, but the difference was something like pouring porridge in my satchel versus merely throwing it in the bin. In other words, not that much of a difference.” Rimmer stirred his tea furiously and needlessly. “I wasn’t planning on ever seeing him again.”

“Sorry.” Lister patted his hand. “I should have just told him where to go, shouldn’t I?”

“If we ever do cross paths again, you could.”

“We won’t. I just won’t take any more jobs on Callisto until - ” Lister broke off and looked up with wide eyes, realising that he’d put his foot in it.

 _Right. Until I’m dead._ Rimmer decided to be generous about the gaffe; he did so hate to see Lister downcast. “No, you don’t have to turn jobs down because of me. I can keep out of the way.”

During their walk home, Lister steered them into the shelter of an empty bus stop. They stood in a close embrace, watching the snowflakes swirling all around them, and Rimmer wondered at how well their bodies fit together, Lister’s head tucked snugly under his chin.

-

The latter part of their winter holiday was spent in London, on Earth, which Rimmer had never visited. The city was still resplendent with Christmas decorations. To his surprise, so were Lister’s friends, Petersen, Chen, and Selby.

“What are you guys like?” Lister exclaimed as he hugged each of them in turn. “This is New Year’s!”

“Why waste a perfectly good reindeer headband?” Petersen slurred; he clearly already had a few drinks in him. “You don’t have to be a bore just because you’re married, Davey-boy. Embrace non-conformity! Down with the system!”

“Our little Davey, all grown up.” Selby pretended to wipe away a tear. “Too grown up to invite us to the wedding, it seems.”

“Well, I - ”

“Ah, it was on short notice, I heard,” Chen intervened. “Young love. Who can predict the course it’ll take?”

“Pipe down, Chen, I want to talk to the husband. Hello, I am Olaf Petersen, world-famous chef. What was your name again?”

  


Rimmer reclined on the sofa cradling his second glass of white wine. Lister had mercifully declared the ship a no-smoking zone, so all he really had to contend with was noise, sometimes in the form of quick-fire questions.

Selby suddenly turned and fixed his bloodshot eyes on him. “Y’know, mate, I’ve got to…got to say, I’d have never thought you were Dave’s type, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Chen chimed in earnestly. “I mean, you two are cute, but I didn’t see him ending up with someone so…sssss…what’s the word?”

 _Male?_ Rimmer thought, feeling panic rise in his chest. He and Lister had never actually discussed their relationship histories, not that there was anything to discuss on his side. He knew Lister liked women unequivocally, men to a degree (to what degree, he wasn’t sure), and he assumed based on their physical relationship that there had been at least one man before him. 

“Posh!” Chen banged his fist on the table, making everyone jump. “Someone so posh.”

“Oh, I’m not really…”

“I mean, he does go for the posh types, but the marriage - marrying them, the ss - the _success_ , that’s a different story, innit?” Chen drained his bottle and reached for another. “Whole different story.”

“Will you stop it, man?” Lister giggled. “You’re making me sound like some kind of social climber or something.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Petersen waved his empty glass in the air as though trying to get attention from an invisible waiter. “You know Dave doesn’t care about all that. He only cares about the classy accent! He gets off on it, you know.”

Selby gasped. “Really? I never knew that!”

Lister groaned and smacked his own forehead. “Shut the smeg up, all of you. I’m sorry, Arn, they’re out of line.”

A chorus of “Oooh!” went up as he left the table and plopped down next to Rimmer. “You okay?” he whispered. “You can go up if you want, you know.”

“You won’t get rid of me that easily,” Rimmer replied, far more bravely than he felt. “Someone needs make sure you don’t fall down or hit your head.”

“Yeah, fair enough.” Lister’s mouth tasted of lager and the cigarette he’d had earlier that day. Watching him slink back to his friends, Rimmer ran his tongue over his lips and reflected that it was both nothing like he’d wanted before and everything he wanted now.

  


An indeterminate number of hours later, Lister was sprawled out on the sofa with his head in Rimmer’s lap, and Petersen and Selby were snoring on the table. Only Chen and Rimmer were still conscious, and Rimmer barely so; he was considering falling asleep right where he was, fully dressed, as he didn’t feel up to carrying Lister to their bedroom.

“Last ones standing, eh?”

“Something like that.”

“’S good to see our boy happy,” Chen drawled, nodding at Lister. “The state he was in last New Year’s, it wasn’t pretty, let me tell you.”

“Oh?” 

“Yeah, well, you know. Because of her. ’M sure he’s told you.”

_Her?_

Chen shook his head sadly. “To think that was only a year ago. Smeg, it was only that October that he was looking at rings. After less than two weeks, I ask you!”

_Rings?!_

“I mean, she was a looker, I’ll give her that. Dead posh and smart as well. Third Officer or something. Dunno what they had in common. But Dave was just - ” Chen brought his palm down on the rim of his coffee cup. “Gone.”

“Less than two weeks,” Rimmer repeated stupidly. Chen took that as commiseration from a person who already knew the story.

“There was no living with him. Krissie this, Krissie that. Thought it’d stop after she dumped him, but it got worse. It’s a good thing you came along, mate, really.” He raised his cup to Rimmer and downed the coffee in one gulp. “Cheers.”

Rimmer no longer felt like falling asleep. He looked down at Lister’s serene, smiling face and mechanically resettled a stray dreadlock. What was the expression? _Any port in a storm._ He knew he had no room to complain about being a port — he’d been the one to propose a marriage of convenience, for smeg’s sake. Oh, he’d wanted to believe that Lister at least liked him a little bit, but that hadn’t been his primary concern, or had it? He couldn’t be sure anymore. Nor could he understand why his heart should be in his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The inspiration for Rimmer’s painting: [Renoir’s Sleeping Cat](http://www.wikiart.org/en/pierre-auguste-renoir/sleeping-cat-1862)


	3. Chapter 3

Rimmer officially began the new year by stumbling into the shower and trying to work out how he’d got there.

He had evidently summoned enough strength after all to carry Lister up. He vaguely remembered lying down, snores in his ear, then nothing. Most likely he’d crashed hard despite how awake he’d felt after the talk with Chen.

As Rimmer was pulling on his boxers, Lister came in with an odd assortment of food — boiled eggs, bread, buttered toast, a chocolate bar, a chicken leg, a foil container of lamb korma and, miraculously, a glass of water. He shrugged (carefully) when Rimmer caught his eye. “I wasn’t sure what you’d want most, so I sort of brought everything.”

If Rimmer had thought it would sound anything other than ridiculous coming from him, he might have said _What I want most is you_ or something similarly romantic. He settled for taking the tray and setting it on the bedside table.

“Not hungry? _Oh…_ ” Lister’s teasing grin relaxed into a lazy smile when Rimmer gravely took his face in his hands. “Still waiting for your New Year’s kiss, aren’t you? It’s true, we didn’t have a proper one, like. Sorry.”

 _Didn’t we?_ Rimmer had thought they were together for the countdown, but it was also possible that he was mistaken; he’d had two bottles of wine all to himself. “I don’t remember, to be honest.”

“I don’t remember all that much, either. I think maybe Petersen wanted to join in and I was fighting him off.”

“Really.” Rimmer shuddered at that image and the others that kept entering his mind in sickening waves. Lister’s shining eyes, the minute expectant twitching in his lips — had _she_ seen that?

It was a stupid question; of course she had. She’d felt Lister’s arms around her, too, and lain on top of him as they kissed and fumbled, probably in this very bed. Had unbuttoned, opened, and got to work, and felt a tender hand cradling her head. Heard muted grunts and murmurs of praise and felt Lister’s gasps echoed in her own increasingly erratic breathing. The difference had surely been in the aftermath.

“You should eat something. Keep your strength up,” Lister giggled, holding a piece of now-lukewarm toast to his mouth, whereupon Rimmer spluttered a complaint about crumbs in the sheets and funny aftertastes. In the end he accepted the offer, not knowing that licking butter off his lips before it melted off while all sorts of nonsense spilled out of them wouldn’t be easy, and painfully aware that his bucking hips were causing the crumbs to scatter far and wide.

 _She_ , on the other hand, would have heard _I love you_ in lovely soft tones. Of that he was certain.

-

Ganymede, voted Top Romantic Destination of the Solar System for the fourth year running, was said by the more cynical to be the Split-Up Capital of the Solar System as well. With so many couples and bars about, it was easy for the unscrupulous and the unlucky-in-love to find new partners within hours of landing there. 

From what Rimmer had observed so far from behind his space-hero sunglasses and sketchbook, the ratio of happy couples to unhappy ones was approximately three-to-two. One pair’s soppy expressions became the faces of a couple of guileless cartoon dogs; another’s frowns went into his tentative sketches of a villain who otherwise bore a strong resemblance to his Uncle Frank. And here came a third, helpfully claiming a bench not three feet from Rimmer’s seat and turning to face each other. 

The man was shamefaced, the woman stricken. She flipped her impressively shiny chestnut hair over one shoulder, sat up ramrod straight, and took a deep breath. “I suppose there’s no use trying to change your mind,” she said with only a slight tremor in her voice. “But I do hope that we can stay friends.”

“Yes.” He scratched at his scalp. “Friends.”

Tears sparkled in her eyes, but she was holding them in — admirably, Rimmer thought. “Well, I…I’ll see you around, Tim.”

“I’ll see you, Krissie.”

 _Krissie._ The name stirred something in Rimmer’s memory. He continued to sneak glances at the woman as she pulled out her phone and dialled a number.

“Hi. It’s Kristine. I just…no, no, it’s just - you were right about Tim. He _was_ planning to…all along, while I was…bastard!” She paused and wiped her eyes. “Pardon? No, no, I’ll be fine once I get my head sorted,” she sighed, then chuckled sadly. “I suppose. What? The - who? Oh. Oh, you mean _Dave._ ”

_No. Surely not._

“Yeah, he was one of the good ones, even if…” Kristine sniffled. “What? Oh, all right, if I should just _happen_ to run into him here, who knows? You’re ridiculous, you know that…”

A few minutes later, Rimmer sensed that he was walking quickly without any idea of the direction or destination. What he did know was that he needed to leave the promenade, leave this city, anything, before the universe caved in on him, hence the need to put one foot in front of the other over and over. He ducked his head and increased his pace as though it would help him launch himself further, and - 

“Hey!” A familiar voice stopped him just short of knocking its owner down. “I thought you’d gone down the promenade. Didn’t you say to meet…”

“Dave,” he gasped. 

“You all right, Arn? You’re dead pale.”

His mouth worked frantically, trying to explain, but no sound came out. Lister put an arm around his waist and drew him closer. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I mean, nothing much,” he lied, gesturing meaninglessly. “I just had, er…I don’t feel good. I know you wanted a drink, but I - can’t.”

In his nervous state, Rimmer rather thought Lister’s smile looked a little too understanding, like he could somehow sense what had happened. “Never mind. Let’s just go home, eh?”

  


Rimmer settled comfortably enough under the duvet that Lister had pulled up to his chin and accepted the gentle kisses to his nose and forehead. _One of the good ones_ , Kristine had said; Lister certainly was that.

What else had she said? Oh, yes. _…if I should just **happen** to run into him here, who knows?_

Yes, who knew? Perhaps if Lister had made it to the promenade, if Rimmer had been elsewhere, he and Kristine would have dramatically found each other, just like in the over-the-top romantic films that Lister liked, and she would have sobbed on his shoulder. Perhaps they would have spent a jolly few minutes abusing Tim, then one of them would have suggested going for a drink for old times’ sake, one thing would have led to another, and - 

“Oh, I forgot to tell you.” Lister sat down on the bed and leaned back on Rimmer’s legs. “I saw a _massive_ cat earlier. I mean, the size of a Labrador, and it looked like it’d just had five Frankensteins for lunch.”

Rimmer couldn’t help snorting with laughter at the mental image. “What? That’s absurd.”

“I swear! I tried really hard get a picture, you know, so I could show you, but then this big bloke in a uniform came running with a leash in his hand…”

_Who knows?_

-

“Arn. Arn, wake up.”

“What? Whuzzit?”

“It’s snowing.”

“I have seen snow before, you gimboid,” Rimmer groaned, and kicked his feet as he stretched. He’d thought they were in mortal peril from the way he’d been shaken awake. 

“Not like this, you haven’t. Come _on_ , you lazy smegger!”

He made a half-hearted show of digging in his heels as he was pulled off the sofa and into the cockpit. They’d parked on a mild-weathered Europa the night before at Lister’s behest. The snowscapes were the most amazing in the Solar System, he’d said, and Rimmer had to see them at least once.

The windscreen, kept clear by the visor-like attachment that Lister had had the foresight to put up, afforded a spectacular view. The mountains in the distance, white and majestic, framed magnificent snow-capped spruces. Rimmer tried to take it all in and inhaled deeply, as if the fresh cold air could heal him of all his doubts and anxieties.

Meanwhile, Lister was eyeing the thick blanket of snow covering the ground. “I want to go outside and roll in it,” he declared.

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I didn’t say you had to do it. Although…”

“What?”

“Well, if we both go, we’ll both get all damp and cold.”

“Exactly.”

“And there’s ways to warm up afterwards, get me?”

  


Rimmer slowly sank back against the edge of the bathtub, lips still firmly attached to Lister’s. He’d come in feeling awake and energetic from the frolic they’d had outside, but now he was getting progressively more drowsy, especially with all his strength now devoted to a different sort of frolic.

He opened his eyes and pressed their foreheads together. He had to do this at least once every time they had sex: look into the soulful (or sparkling, or steadfastly shining, as the case might be) brown eyes and pretend that they were the only two people left in the world. Sometimes he quite liked the idea, and at no other time was it so appealing than when they were close together and he was _close_ , so close to letting Lister (only Lister) see him come undone, desperate choked noises and all.

Their gaze inevitably broke when one of them closed his eyes and moaned, or gasped, or buried his face in the other’s shoulder or neck. There were always kisses in the afterglow, soft and indolent unlike the fevered ones they’d given and taken just a moment earlier.

Lister was the sentimental one, but it was Rimmer who wanted to hold on longer, shivering and trying not to feel as though he’d been let out to sea.

  


Lister scooted closer to Rimmer’s side and gazed thoughtfully at the walls of their bedroom. “We should reinforce some of the panels in the cockpit. I mean, they’ll hold for now, but next winter…yeah, we’ll give the whole ship a going over. I don’t fancy getting trapped under six feet of snow, do you?”

 _Next winter._ Rimmer tried to picture it. Where would Lister be then? Here, reminiscing about nights like this one? Or would he be too busy lying contentedly in some other pair of arms?

“Arn? What do you think?”

“It hardly matters to me.” The bitter words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them. “It’s your ship. You can reinforce whatever you want.” _And afterwards, you can enjoy the results with whomever you want,_ he struggled not to add.

“ _Our_ ship,” Lister corrected lightly. “That was your idea, wasn’t it? Being married.”

Anger — real anger, which Rimmer hadn’t felt in ages — bubbled up in his chest. How did Lister expect him to answer such a ridiculous, insensitive question? It wouldn’t be _their_ ship by then, because he’d be dead, gone, buried under six feet of snow and more, returned to his natural state of aloneness. “As I said,” he said through gritted teeth, “it doesn’t matter.”

The enthusiasm in Lister’s face slowly gave way to something unreadable. “If that’s how you feel,” he said with a politeness that made Rimmer brace himself for a rejection. Maybe he would turn his back and slide away to the other side of the bed. Maybe he’d go and find another bunk to kip in, leaving Rimmer to get used to sleeping alone again.

Lister reached over to wrap them up together in the duvet and snuggled close against his back.

Rimmer closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He tried to catalogue everything — the stubble on Lister’s cheek sandpapering his shoulder, the heavy arm resting on his body, the fingernails scratching small abstract drawings into his skin. He’d been too caught up in life lately to cherish every sensation, enjoy being alive to the fullest, et cetera; it was time to start again. Before next winter.

  


Some hours later, a piteous moan against his neck startled him awake. “Dave?”

“Don’t,” Lister muttered, squeezing him hard around the waist with both arms. “We can work through this, I know we can.”

“What?” He twisted round as much he could to look at Lister, who was clearly asleep, eyes screwed up tight and face contorted in - something. If he’d been of a poetic bent, he might have called it soul-searing agony.

“I know things haven’t been perfect, but come on. Please don’t do this.”

“Do this?” Rimmer repeated in confusion.

“I mean, you can’t just like - pack your bags, just like that. We’re married, for smeg’s sake! Give us a fighting chance, at least.”

 _He’s not talking to you. He’s dreaming._ Yes, that made the most sense. Lister must be pleading with the person he was married to in his dream, his dream spouse, who’d decided to leave after a row or somesuch. Rimmer found this deduction oddly comforting. Deciding that Lister needed some comfort as well, he wriggled out of the vice-like embrace he was in and stroked Lister’s back. He didn’t notice at first that as the frown faded from Lister’s face, one was taking hold on his own brow.

He was a sleep-deprived mess at breakfast, much to Lister’s amusement; he couldn’t remember where they kept the bread or how to fill the kettle.

“Let me do that,” Lister laughed, reaching over to take the kettle out of his hands. “I worry about you, man. Sometimes I don’t know if it’s safe to leave you here by yourself.”

“I’m perfectly capable of being by myself.” Rimmer was in no mood for jokes about being alone. The more he mulled over the previous night, the more it rankled that after no more than six months of being married to him, Lister was already having vivid dreams about being married to someone else ( _No prizes for guessing who_ , he thought). Surely he wasn’t out of line to want to be foremost in Lister’s thoughts during what little time together they had left.

“Hey.” Lister put one hand on his back and fluffed his hair with the other. “What’s on your mind?”

Rimmer flinched away from both gestures. “Nothing,” he snapped. “Your smegging snoring kept me up.”

“Oh, eh?” Lister’s eyebrows shot up at the sharp edge in his voice. “I thought you said I didn’t do it as much anymore.”

“You’ve relapsed.”

“Well, why didn’t you wake me?”

“I - look, it doesn’t matter now, does it? The damage is already done.” Rimmer turned away and picked up his mug. He couldn’t bear any more of Lister’s troubled, innocent gaze.

The gaze gradually darkened during the next week. Rimmer was very much aware of Lister’s frowns and downward-turning mouth whenever he cut short a kiss or looked away too quickly from shared smiles. The truth was that it hurt to have Lister smile at or touch him like nothing was wrong. His mind would insist that something _was_ wrong, and a little not-quite-buried voice would add that Lister must be a very good actor indeed to keep such strong feelings for his lost love in check. Who was to say their whole marriage wasn’t a masterpiece performance born of kindness on Lister’s part?

  


Their last day on Europa brought an unexpected spell of hot weather. They sat companionably at the top of the steps which led into Starbug, Rimmer’s inner voices quieted for the time being, and watched the snow melt as rapidly as it had piled up.

“Hey,” Lister said, abruptly raising his head from Rimmer’s shoulder and pointing into the distance, “what’s that?”

“I can’t see anything.”

“Over there, by the stump. You know, it almost looks like…”

As Lister had guessed, it was a mechanoid, a 4000 Series. He was lying facedown in the last of the snow, one of his arms was unhinged, and wires were coming out of his legs. With Lister’s help he managed to hobble into Starbug and collapse on the floor next to the sofa.

“What’s your name, man?” Lister asked gently.

“My name is Kryten, sir. How may I - ” Kryten’s eyes rolled back into his head, his neck made a series of rapid, jerky movements, and his mouth spewed forth a stream of gibberish before it closed with a snap.

Lister shook his head. “It’s no good. We’ll have to fix him up before he can tell us what happened.”

“Are you saying we have to fix him up so that we can fix him up?”

“I know it seems hopeless, but we’ve got to do something, Arn. Look at the state of him. Trouble is, I’ll be busy from the moment we land on Miranda.”

“No,” Rimmer blurted out rudely. “I mean,” he hastened to explain after clearing his throat, “you know I’m not good with machines. I found that out when I tried to make a career out of repairing them.”

Lister patted his arm sympathetically. “I don’t mean to put too much on you, honest. Mostly I want him to be kept comfortable until I can come home and work on him more. You can do that for me, can’t you?”

Rimmer sighed. If looking after Kryten was how he could be more useful in Lister’s eyes, he would do it; it was only that the parallels between himself and this wreck of a robot were all too apparent.

-

If Frankenstein was unhappy about Rimmer, she was incensed over Kryten. Lister was patient; he claimed that fear and animosity were natural given that she’d only encountered mechanoids a few times in her life, and that she’d get used to him just like she’d got used to Rimmer. Rimmer wasn’t so sure. He had given Frankie a wide berth, let her have the time and space to sort out her feelings, whereas Kryten, once he could walk and speak unaided, fussed over her daily, inquiring whether the automatic food dispenser provided adequate nutrition and offering to bathe her and brush her fur. He seemed oblivious to the hostility in her every interaction with him.

Rimmer’s irritation was only increased by the fact that he did not particularly want Kryten around, either, although he could never say so to Lister. He thought constantly about his time running out. The six-month mark, counting from the day he’d received Dr Tranter’s letter, had come and gone. His health was fine in general, and he felt intuitively that he’d hang on for longer rather than not. Nevertheless, he wanted more time with Lister, more alone time without interruptions, just _more_. He couldn’t care less if it was selfish.

He had a bad fortnight in March, laid up with a bad cold and convinced that it was the end — he was going to die while Lister spent (to his mind) inordinate amounts of time working on getting all of Kryten’s systems to 100%.

“Dave, we need to talk,” he croaked once every few days during his illness, when Lister would pull up a chair next to the bed to tend to him. “About…there’s so much to discuss.”

“You’re meant to rest your throat,” was Lister’s invariably mild reply, reinforced with a squeeze of his hand. “Better leave it till later if it’s important, eh? I reckon you could get a bit confused with your temperature so high.”

Rimmer could have lashed out at that, demanded _Don’t you understand that there might not be a later?_ , but if he was honest, part of him was relieved at Lister’s nonchalance. As much as he attempted to keep the reality of his situation in mind, he didn’t actually want to consider last wishes and wills and funeral arrangements.

For better or for worse, he recovered. By his first full day out of bed, Kryten was nearly fully functional and Lister’s evenings were his own again.

-

“It’s a surprise” was all Lister would reveal about their holiday destination. When he was called downstairs, Rimmer went with some dread. He could guess from the travel time that they’d landed on Earth or perhaps Mars; there were any number of places in that neighbourhood to which Lister would want to take him. London again? He wouldn’t mind, although…

“Hi.”

He saw Lister’s sunny grin before he saw the view: the River Mersey and the Liverpool skyline in all their glory. His breath caught as he looked from the windscreen to Lister and back. “No wonder you were so excited.”

“Yeah. I thought it was time.” Rimmer chose not to read into the implications of _it was time_. “Let’s get a wiggle on. We don’t want to miss anything.”

“Anything” turned out to include a trip to the Aigburth Arms, the pub where Lister had been found in a cardboard box. “Look, it’s still here,” he said wistfully, indicating the pool table with a wave of his hand. “After all these years. Place hasn’t changed one bit.”

Rimmer couldn’t tell if the lack of change was good or bad in Lister’s view. He was thinking about the unthinkable: What if Lister had been abandoned on a different day, found by different people, adopted by another family? What if his gran hadn’t died so early? What if he’d never been abandoned at all? The likely answer to all of those questions was that they wouldn’t be stood here together in this cramped, dark pub, staring at an all-important pool table. How wondrous that a series of decisions made 25 years ago, no matter how small, had brought them together, ensuring that Rimmer wouldn’t be alone in his final year. The alternative did not bear contemplating.

  


_Let’s go fishing,_ Lister had said.

 _What, with no bait?_ Rimmer had thought, but then he didn’t know much about fishing. The rods that Kryten had dug out of storage looked sturdy enough, and Lister seemed to be at home with them.

_We’re going down to the canal._

_What, not the shore just over there?_

_The canal’s better for fishing._

Kryten had cocked his head doubtfully at their conversation, which should have set alarm bells ringing in Rimmer’s head.

“There’s some sort of catch, isn’t there?” Rimmer pressed as he followed Lister to their supposed fishing spot. “I hate to point this out, but the water doesn’t exactly look to be teeming with fish.”

“Not really, no,” Lister chuckled. “Here we are. Come on, we can sit on those stools.”

“What’s the catch, Dave?”

“Oh, all right, this is the catch.” Lister put an arm around Rimmer’s waist and looked up beguilingly, with a few exaggerated flutters of his eyelashes. “We’re going to fish for condoms.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Condoms. _Condoms?!_ ” Rimmer repeated in despair. “What’s wrong with fish?”

“There’s nothing wrong with fish.” Lister’s smile turned slightly bittersweet. “It’s just, I used to come here a lot as a kid, right, and there were never any fish. It’s not like I could have gone to the proper fishing spots, being a kid, and…you know. We used to have competitions to see who caught the biggest one.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, really! One time, I caught this two-pound black ribbed knobbler. I won hands down with that one. That was a good day, that was.”

Rimmer chortled, wondering how many more bizarre things about Lister he’d learn before his clock ran out. “And now you want to instruct me in the ways of the most noble sport of condom fishing, Liverpool rules.”

“Got it in one.”

_ Condom Fishing: Final score _

_**Dave:** 4 - 1 M plain, 1 XL neon green!!, 1 S, 1 really smegging weird (might once have been zebra print? Hard to say)_

_**Arn:** **3** ~~4~~ \- 1 M ?dalmatian print??, 1 S, 1 XL plain, ~~also 1 bra~~ **NICE TRY, DOESN’T COUNT.**_


	4. Chapter 4

“D’you know, I actually miss gardening.” Rimmer frowned at his own words as soon as they left his lips. He had no idea where the thought had sprung from.

Fortunately for him, Lister knew. “That greenhouse last week took you back, didn’t it? It was a bit like old times,” he teased. “All those romantic handshakes.”

 _They **were** quite romantic, actually,_ Rimmer thought mutinously, jabbing at a tomato on his plate. _For a sad deprived git like me, at any rate._

He didn’t think any more of it until Lister came home one day with a box branded “High-Yield Hydroponics”. Together they installed the artificial sunlight fixture, started up the large hydroponic pod, and conscientiously spaced the daffodil bulbs apart.

Rimmer felt something of the old satisfaction of a gardening job well done as the pod gradually filled with yellow and white blooms. Kryten went into regular throes of delight at finally achieving his dream of making things grow, although he had to be persuaded not to use antibacterial cleaning wipes on the petals. Even Frankenstein spent long hours gazing at the flowers.

Lister was the only one who seemed to have misgivings. “I know it’s not quite the same,” he kept saying, and Rimmer kept replying that he wasn’t fussed. He wasn’t; it wasn’t as though they had the wherewithal, or he the time, to settle into a home with a proper garden.

He painted another portrait of Frankie, this time depicting her lost in thought in front of the pod, and Lister gave it a place of honour beside the first painting.

  


Kryten was well enough now to do some of the shopping. Since it was not in his programming to question his humans’ shopping lists, they could request a whole Mimian bladderfish along with Sugar Puffs and two different kinds of bread (they never could agree on bread) without worrying about deviations from the list or judgement of their choices.

While Kryten went off to initiate downtime, Rimmer started to paw through that day’s haul, which was an odd mix as usual: toothpaste, vindaloo paste, pork pies, a tube of…“What’s this?”

Lister smiled almost shyly, albeit with mischief in his eyes. It was a look that Rimmer had never seen on him before. “Dave?”

“Well, I thought we could - I thought I’d get some just in case.”

Rimmer’s eyes focused on the writing on the tube: _Personal Lubricant._ Oh. _Ah._ “I see.”

“I’m up for it if you are, is all I’m saying.”

In a rare moment of clarity, Rimmer saw that Lister’s casualness was a pretence. Fifteen minutes later (the food had to be put away first), they were locked in the bedroom and nearly naked.

“Do you _have_ to be so slow?” Lister grumbled as Rimmer undid the last few buttons on his long johns one by one.

“I prefer to think of it as ‘precise’, actually.”

Rimmer continued to be “precise”, doing his best to apply all that he’d secretly spent hours reading and fantasising, and Lister seemed to have little to complain about aside from the odd movement that drew a startled gasp and sometimes a sheepish “Been awhile.” When his insistent whispers for the pace to pick up finally began to be heeded, he happily bit one purple mark into Rimmer’s neck, then another; Rimmer responded by gripping his hips hard enough to bruise. 

When it was all over, they lay facing each other, each mesmerised by the elation on the other’s face. For one sweet, terrible moment, Rimmer considered telling Lister how he felt. Maybe now, when everything was new and hazy and exciting, it wouldn’t sound so out of the blue, maybe -

Then Lister’s hand gently pushed some curls behind his ear, by now an old, familiar gesture, which reminded him that he’d come this far without telling.

-

Frankenstein was the first to know that something was wrong. As Callisto came into view, she yowled loudly and scrambled to hide under a cushion. Lister and Rimmer barely had time to wonder what was happening before Starbug lurched to the left, then took a nosedive.

“What is going on?!” Rimmer’s heart was beating out a Quick March as he picked himself up off the floor.

“I don’t know!” Lister shouted over the shrill beeps of the blue alert alarm. “The console’s not responding right. We need to land and - ” The back legs of the ship clipped the top of a pine tree and they veered to the right, then nose-up, then downward again. Rimmer crouched behind Lister’s chair and braced himself for certain doom.

With an almighty screech, Starbug skidded to a halt just a few feet short of a lake, and the beeps ceased.

“Sirs? Is everything all right? Frankenstein seems rather distressed.” They turned to see Kryten at the door of the cockpit, cradling a wide-eyed Frankie in the crook of his arm and holding a hypodermic sedative to her neck.

Rimmer stared at him, trying to work out how to answer. Something like _What do you think, you rubber-headed moron?!_ might have sufficed, but he couldn’t quite manage the brain-to-mouth connection.

Lister was far calmer. “Kryten,” he began in a dangerously level voice. “When you were cleaning the cockpit earlier, did you dust the console like I asked you to?”

Kryten seemed offended by the question. “Yes, I did, Mr Lister. I gave it a good wash as well with that lovely new lemon-scented soap.”

“Soap,” Rimmer repeated blankly.

“Soap,” Kryten confirmed, a manic smile lighting up his face. “Your workstation is completely grime-free now, sir.”

  


Kryten was rather human in his nervousness about going to the mech hospital, Rimmer thought. He would have found it touching if not for his boiling resentment.

“They’re specialists, Krytie,” Lister explained patiently. “There’s only so much I can do for you, man. I’ve realised that now. They’ll take a look and give you a general re-tuning. You’ll be much happier afterwards, I promise.”

“But an overnight stay? What will Mr Rimmer and Frankenstein do without me?”

“We were just fine before we found you,” Rimmer muttered. Lister shot him a reproachful look and went about coaxing Kryten into unscrewing his head.

  


The moment the latch clicked into place, Lister leapt into Rimmer’s arms and practically wrestled him onto the bed. Rimmer went willingly, for once not bothering to be precise about undressing, and let Lister do whatever he wanted. It was obvious that they needed the same thing: to make sure they were both alive.

-

“Sir, your wedding anniversary is approaching,” Kryten had remarked off-handedly before he and Lister had left for the shuttleport. “I happened to see the date on the system calendar while I was cleaning.”

So it was. Rimmer wondered if it was strange that he hadn’t thought about it, or that Lister hadn’t mentioned it, then he remembered why: He hadn’t been expected to live this long.

 _That_ was strange, wasn’t it? He’d been given 6-8 months, maybe one year if he was very fortunate. It had now been over a year since he’d gone for the tests. He still had the symptoms, but there had been no steep decline, and somehow he had survived the previous day’s accident.

A horrifying thought entered Rimmer’s mind. If his supposedly dying heart could go through a near-death experience and could feel completely normal the next day, even after all the slightly painful adrenaline-fuelled sex he’d had afterwards…no. No. Certainly not. It was impossible. It would be totally absurd. Totally, utterly…

  


“Sorry about the cock-up,” the bored-looking AI said for the fifth time, not appearing or sounding any sorrier than he’d done the first four times.

Rimmer resisted the urge to throw something at his bald head. “I’ve heard you loud and clear. _Put. Dr Tranter. On._ ”

“Thank you, Holly.” The doctor’s face replaced the AI’s on the screen. “Mr Rimmer?”

“What’s really wrong with me?” Rimmer demanded, all courtesy exhausted.

“You have something called mitral valve prolapse. In its non-classic form, which is fortunately what you’ve got, it’s largely harmless, although it’s prudent to control the symptoms with medication and to receive check-ups every few years. Now, I could send along a prescription to your current location if - ”

“No.”

“I’m sorry?”

“My current location is - no, I’ll notify you of it later.”

Dr Tranter frowned, obviously baffled, but he didn’t push. “I apologise again for the mix-up. The fire that day was really quite small, but the effect on Holly was, well, there’s not really an excuse for that kind of system error, although I did expect you to follow up after you’d received my letter. If there’s anything I can do, anything at all, to compensate - ”

“Yes,” Rimmer cut him off absently. “Goodbye.”

  


At some point during the hour that it took Rimmer to compose himself, Frankenstein joined him on the sofa and stretched out across his belly. He gazed down at her silky head and little cat-smile and tried not to cry. _I’m going to miss you as well, believe it or not._

He had to leave. Every time he thought about how he’d essentially taken advantage of Lister on the basis of false information, his face went hot with shame. _There goes Arnie, getting it wrong again, smegging everything up again._

Lister apparently enjoyed Rimmer’s company, but he had not signed on for a lifetime of it. Their arrangement had been one from which he expected to be free soon, free to live as he wanted again and perhaps to reconnect with the great love of his life. Now that Kristine was available, very possibly even willing, who knew what could happen?

Rimmer had merely been a distraction. He couldn’t live that way in the long term; he couldn’t stay where he wasn’t wanted.

  


If Howard was surprised to find his brother at his door, he didn’t show it. “Arnold! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Rimmer went straight to the point. “I need money.”

“Ah. Trouble in paradise?”

“Don’t.”

“If you don’t mind my saying so, you look terrible. You also seem to have lost your wedding ring.”

“I do mind.” The knowledge that his stoic mask was slipping only served to fuel Rimmer’s helpless rage at his situation. “Look, I’ll pay you back every pennycent. I just…I just need enough to get back to Io.”

“Back to Io?” Howard stared at him, incredulous. “You can’t mean back to Mother’s?”

 _Back to Mother’s._ At those words and that prospect, something in Rimmer snapped. When he regained full awareness, he found that he was pacing Howard’s front hall, head in hands, and with the distinct impression that he’d just confessed why he’d married Lister and what he’d learned that day.

“Now, you probably don’t want questions.”

“But you’ll ask some anyway.”

“Well, yes. For instance, why leave?”

Rimmer didn’t understand. “Why…what?”

“Why leave?” Howard repeated calmly. “You’re not going to die, and from what I’ve gathered, you were happy, although _what_ the appeal of the nomadic lifestyle might be, I can’t imagine. Why leave such an advantageous situation?”

“You can’t be serious.” Punctuating this with an unnaturally high-pitched laugh, Rimmer put both hands in his hair and pulled. “I think Dave would have realised something was amiss, don’t you?”

Howard shrugged. “Even so, what could he have done about it, or said? Think of how ludicrous it would sound. ‘Excuse me, but I can’t help noticing that you’ve failed to drop dead and leave me widowed. You couldn’t hurry it up a bit, could you?’”

That was, in fact, more or less what Rimmer had imagined Lister thinking, if not saying. However, he was not about to betray any more emotion to Howard. _No more._ “It’s done. I’ve already left. Can you spare the money or not?”

“I can. The thought occurs, though - ”

“What?”

“Why don’t you stay here, at least for the time being? I won’t tell anyone,” Howard added when he saw Rimmer’s expression. “I know it wouldn’t be your first choice, but anything’s got to be better than Mother’s.”

“No.” _Christmas. The sunglasses. Holding hands across the table in the café. Holding each other in the snow._ Rimmer choked down an anguished cry. “I mean, yes, it would be better, but no, I can’t stay here.”

  


The shuttle reached its destination just before dawn. It was a long walk to the house and Rimmer’s bags felt like they’d been weighed down with rocks, but he didn’t care. There was very little left in the world worth caring about.

***

The night they’d made love in the frenetic aftermath of the accident had been a revelation for Lister. With Rimmer’s body curled possessively around his, he’d felt safe. Grounded. Yet his dream that night had been anything but.

It started with something small: this time, a cushion that had fallen on the floor and not been picked up. It was small to Lister, anyhow, but Rimmer spun around and set off up the stairs without a word. In no time at all he was back with the bags he’d brought from Io.

“What are you doing?” Lister asked helplessly. All he got back was a stony look before Rimmer turned his back and headed toward the door. “Where are you going? Listen, Arn, wait. _Wait_. This is stupid. You can’t leave me over a smegging cushion. It doesn’t work like that!”

He woke up with his eyes stinging and his fists gripping the sheets. Rimmer was still wrapped up with him, snoring against his shoulder — not the thunderous snores he himself was guilty of, but small, squeaky exhales which usually made him smile. Not tonight.

He’d had this dream before.

The nightmares that had been plaguing him for months all followed the same template: Rimmer walked out on him over a minor tiff, and he pleaded with Rimmer to stop because they were _married_ , for smeg’s sake, happily married even, and they had to at least try and resolve the argument before doing something so drastic. But this was the first instance that Lister was able to replay in his head with such clarity.

_He’ll leave you soon anyway._

No. Lister squeezed his eyes shut. He would not think about that. He did not allow himself - 

_But instead of getting ready for it, you’ve gone and made it harder to say goodbye. When he goes -_

After the first few months, it had seemed to Lister that he and Rimmer always lived in Starbug together, that both halves of the bunk had always been occupied. He could barely remember when it had been otherwise, because they were…they just _were_. Of course Rimmer had got over the cold back in March; there was no reason he couldn’t have done. Aside from that and the odd episode with his heart, he was in normal health, and he was the happiest he’d ever been. Why would he go anywhere?

_**When** he goes, you won’t be able to cope. Smegging fool._

Yet Rimmer was going to leave him just like in the dreams, just like his family had left him one by one.

-

Lister paced the corridor outside Kryten’s hospital room long into the night.

Part of him was hopeful that Rimmer would simply keep on living, prognosis be damned. Perhaps the doctor had been too conservative in his estimate, and even if he hadn’t, there were any number of anecdotes about patients living far beyond preliminary estimates. It was entirely possible that they would get another year, maybe even another two years, maybe…

No, hope wasn’t enough, and constantly being on tenterhooks would be agony for both of them. He had to do something, if only to make up for his earlier avoidance of the topic, which had no doubt frightened Rimmer. They had to stop being passive; they could get second and third opinions, scour the Solar System for more specialists, look for a miracle cure or at least a temporary reprieve. Regardless of their next step, he couldn’t just let Rimmer go, not without letting him know how much he meant.

  


As the shuttle carrying him and a grateful Kryten sped them home, Lister practised. _We have to talk…to be honest, I didn’t expect this to…I really wanted you to know how I’ve come to feel about…_

Smeg all that. Clear and direct was best, surely. _I love you._

Lister exhaled loudly. It was a great relief to admit his feelings to himself. _No matter what, I love you. I want you to stay with me for as long as possible._

“Mr Lister? Is something wrong?”

“I’m fine, Kryten. Better than fine, actually.” And it was true; there was something very exciting about a future in which he and Rimmer were honest about their feelings. From now on, they would be in this completely together, eyes open, and - 

“Arn? We’re home!” The interior of Starbug was dark. Lister peeked in the cockpit; there was only Frankenstein, asleep on Rimmer’s chair. “Hello?” Then it came into view: A white envelope addressed to him, resting on his console.

> Dear Dave:
> 
> I spoke to Dr Tranter. It was all a mistake, an administrative error. I’m not dying. 
> 
> Please believe me when I say that I didn’t mean to deceive you. I’ll do whatever is needed to secure a divorce — I’m not sure if an annulment would be possible.
> 
> I’ve looked through the grounds for divorce, and it seems that desertion would be the easiest to claim. I’ll contact you when the correct amount of time has passed.
> 
> Thank you for everything.

Lister collapsed into his own chair. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” he whispered over and over, unsure whom he was addressing.

“Mr Lister?”

“It’s okay, Kryten, it’s all going to be okay. Everything’s going to be just…” The grin slowly faded from his face as Rimmer’s words sank in. _Deceive. Divorce._ With horror he realised that there was something else in the envelope: Rimmer’s wedding ring. _Desertion. No. No, no, no, no. Why? Why would he do this?_

“Why?” he asked out loud. “Where could he even have gone?”

“If I may, sir,” Kryten said gently. “I would assume that he wanted to make a clean break. He’ll have tried to avoid places you’ve been to together, places with happy memories.”

The words _clean break_ , Lister thought, also applied to his heart at the moment. “That - that does narrow it down, I suppose,” he conceded bleakly.

“I think it’s quite likely that Mr Rimmer returned to his family of origin.”

“What, to Io?” Lister exclaimed. “But why, for smeg’s sake? He hates that place! And we _have_ been there together. It’s where we first met, where we got married…”

“Yes, but that was all before your life together truly began. I believe Mr Rimmer, in his current state of mind, wants to pretend that it never happened. In his view, the best way to cope with the end of your marriage was to treat it as a dream or a blip.”

“Our marriage has not _ended_ ,” Lister retorted mulishly. “If he thinks he can shake me off that easily, I’ve got a big surprise for him. God, what a smeghead.”

“You or him, sir?”

“Both.” Lister wiped his eyes and straightened up. “Listen, man, I need your help. We’ve got to get airborne as soon as possible.”

“I’ll load my new databases right away, sir.”

-

The hill hadn’t changed. There was the grass, the trees, and the footpath. And there was Rimmer, watching wide-eyed as Starbug made its descent.

Intuition told Lister that Rimmer would be too stunned to run away, but he nonetheless gripped the joystick until his hand hurt. Smeg, but he’d missed him so much. He hadn’t been able to fall asleep in the half-empty bed until Kryten had bullied him into drinking warm milk. Rimmer had to come back. He had to.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” he demanded as soon as he got within earshot.

Rimmer refused to meet his eyes. “I assume you found my letter,” he said tonelessly.

“Yeah, and it doesn’t make sense. You get good news like that and the first thing you do is leave? Without so much as talking to me about it?”

“We always knew it would be one year at most,” Rimmer replied in the same monotone. “After a year, you would be free.”

“Free? You mean alone.”

“Yes. That was the arrangement.”

Lister went to Rimmer and kissed him gently, exactly as he’d done a year previously in this very spot. “Do you know how much I’ve missed you, just the past couple of days?” he asked, softening his voice. “You’re - you’re not a burden, man. I was happy - I _am_ happy with you. And now that we know we’re going to have more time together, it’s - well, it’s going to be even better, isn’t it? Just come home. Please.”

“I can’t.”

Lister remembered then that he had something important to say. “I love you.” 

The response was not what he had expected. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Rimmer spat, turning his face toward the house.

“But - ”

“I should have no dignity left by this point. I shouldn’t care, but I do. I can’t go back to living with you, knowing that all the time, you’ll be thinking of someone else, wanting to be with someone else.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Kristine.”

Lister reeled. He hadn’t thought of or heard that name in ages. “How do you know about her?” he whispered.

Rimmer ignored the question. “When we went to Ganymede, I…I saw her on the promenade. I watched her split up with Tom or Tim or whatever his name was, and she said if she happened to run into you, she would…that she would.”

 _Oh, Arn._ “So what? I wouldn’t.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Rimmer said again with a bitter laugh. “Chen told me all about it. How you were head over heels, how devastated you were for months after it ended. You wanted to marry her after knowing her for five minutes.”

“I did,” Lister admitted. He didn’t like recalling how broken he’d been. “I thought she was the one. But a few weeks isn’t enough to know, not really.”

“It took me less time than that.”

The confession felt like a knife to Lister’s heart. As much as part of him wanted to paper over Rimmer’s wounds with platitudes, he knew he couldn’t. “I wish I could tell you she didn’t mean anything to me,” he said with difficulty, “that it was just a fling. But I’d be lying.”

“I thought so.”

“No, listen. I _was_ in love with her — I won’t deny it. When she finished with me, it was - it destroyed me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” Lister hastily wiped his tears and continued. “You know, I’ve been having these dreams, nightmares. You kept - you kept leaving me over stupid little things, and no matter what I said, you’d still…”

“What?”

“You packed your bags and walked out every time, and I couldn’t work out why. When I read your letter, it was like those nightmares came true, you see? You didn’t die, but you still left me.”

Rimmer fell silent. Lister tentatively reached into his jacket and pulled out Rimmer’s ring. “Put this back on,” he pleaded. “Come home.”

“I…”

“Please.”

“Okay,” Rimmer whispered. Lister tried not to let his disappointment show. _Okay?_ Was that it? “On one condition.”

“What is it?”

“Let’s take this one day at a time.” For the first time since Lister had landed, Rimmer looked him in the eye. “I don’t want to…I don’t want for us to assume that we’ll live happily ever after.”

“What’s wrong with that?” 

“Anything could happen. Besides, I still don’t believe you. Not completely.” Rimmer smiled sadly. “I can’t. But I’ll try to.”

 _That’s not what I want._ Lister held back the protest; this wasn’t the time. For now, Rimmer coming back to him had to be enough. At least the ring was now where it belonged.

***

People were surprised to see a uniformed Space Corps officer at the Callisto Colonial Gallery. The military types didn’t tend to go in for art exhibitions and similar events; they were too busy manning ships, leading drills, and doing other military things. A woman from the crowd, recognising the officer from some JMC function or other, went up to say hello.

“I saw a painting earlier by an Arnold Rimmer. Any relation to you, Captain?”

“Yes, my brother,” Howard answered graciously. “I’m very proud of him. He showed artistic talent from a young age, but it wasn’t until recently that he began to cultivate it.”

“I see. Well, it’s a lovely picture, though the subject matter is rather unusual.”

“Yes, rather unusual, isn’t it? Dear boy, he and his family just won’t give up that dilapidated old ship. But it is quite a good painting, I agree — the daffodils in the background are a nice touch. If I may say so, I might have had a hand in - ah, here he is, the artist himself!”

“Howard,” the artist said frostily. “If you were about to say ‘I might have had a hand in getting his career off the ground’, please desist.”

The woman drew back in shock. Howard excused himself with an unctuous smile and rounded on Rimmer. “I’m just trying to build some social capital here, Arnie,” he whined. “Some assistance would not go amiss.”

“You can do that without lying,” Lister pointed out sweetly, popping up out of nowhere and making Howard jump. “For instance, you could actually baby-sit more instead of just offering. You know how much the masses love seeing men with small children.”

“Well, that would - ”

“It would be much more helpful than you making out that you’re some sort of patron of the arts,” Rimmer groused.

Howard’s eyes rolled up towards the heavens. “Oh, _fine._ Tomorrow night, I promise. I’ll take the boys out to dinner.”

Lister narrowed his eyes. “Do you know anything about what children eat? Maybe you should come early - ” — he shrugged at Rimmer, who was shaking his head and mouthing _No_ — “ - come to ours early so we can talk.”

  


The bus stop was deserted save for two figures, both bundled in large coats and thick scarves. They held each other close, oblivious to comments about the cold from passersby; it was clear that they’d created their own little world and planned to stay there for awhile.


End file.
